A biography for Vera Wanghasn’t been written yet.
“My bedroom is my sanctuary. It's like a refuge, and it's where I do a fair amount of designing - at least conceptually, if not literally.”
“All I did my first year at Vogue was Xerox.”
“I work with structure, but I go outside the box and give it my own spin. I adore the challenge of creating truly modern clothes - where a woman's personality and sense of style are realized.”
“Figure skating has been a great influence for me. I took dance at the School of American Ballet, which helped my own skating. And whether you are a skater or a dancer, without sounding narcissistic, it is all about looking in the mirror.”
“Although in skating you compete with other people, anyone who achieves a certain level of success is first and foremost competing against themselves. And for me the idea that I could always do better, learn more, learn faster, is something that came from skating. But I carried that with me for the rest of my life.”
“My closet is organized by tops, pants, and outerwear, but not a lot of dresses. Gowns are in another room because I don't often dress formally, even though I design gowns. Like most designers, I have a uniform, and mine is a legging.”
“They never ask the celebrities why they don't wear their own clothes on the red carpet.”
“I was a total fashion insider who became an outsider when I did bridal.”
“I always see where I didn't do things the right way. I only see the heavy lifting. That's a bit of my wisdom, if you want to call it that.”
“It is horrible to say, but I was stigmatized by being a bridal designer for a long time. I am amazed I have been able to move beyond it. I had really all but given up trying, but I did it because it was my lifelong dream.”
“The key is falling in love with something, anything. If your heart's attached to it, then your mind will be attached to it.”
“I was trying to manage school and training for the Olympics and ended up not doing well at either. That was a big lesson in my life. My mother expected both.”
“I hate phones. All businesses are personal businesses, and I always try my best to get back to people, but sometimes the barrage of calls is so enormous that if I just answered calls I would do nothing else.”
“I started at the very highest level so the upper end is something I know very well. I know it instinctively. But all the years I was designing, it frustrated me that I could reach so few women.”
“That was a major goal for me - to be able to reach and encourage more women, to encourage them to express themselves and be what they want to be. People get very trapped where they are.”
“My mother is the reason I'm in fashion. She worshiped it. Unfortunately, she infected me.”
“I'm not really a girl who likes to go out to lunch or cocktails or store openings.”
“When I design a wedding dress with a bustle, it has to be one the bride can dance in. I love the idea that something is practical and still looks great.”
“I was the girl who nobody thought would ever get married. I was going to be a fashion nun the rest of my life. There are generations of them, those fashion nuns, living, eating, breathing clothes.”
“Design is about point of view, and there should be some sort of woman or lifestyle or attitude in one's head as a designer.”